Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader eBook

The best time for sleep is during the silence and
darkness of night. People who have to work nights,
and to sleep during the day, have a strained and wearied
look.

The amount of sleep needed depends upon the temperament
of each individual. Some require little sleep,
while others need a great deal.

Eight hours of sleep for an adult, and from ten to
twelve hours for children and old people is about
the average amount required.

Some of the greatest men in history are known to have
been light sleepers. Most of the world’s
great workers took a goodly amount of sleep, however.
Sir Walter Scott, the great writer, took eight hours
of sleep, and so did the famous philosopher Emanuel
Kant. Children need more sleep than grown people.
They should retire early and sleep until they awake
in the morning.

When fairly awake we should get up. Dozing is
unhealthful, especially for young people.

“Early to bed and early to rise,
Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”

LESSON XXVI

CURIOUS BIRDS’ NESTS

Among the most curious nests are those made by the
birds called weavers. These feathered workmen
serve no apprenticeship; their trade comes to them
by nature; and how well they work at it! But
then you must admit that Nature is a skillful teacher
and birds are apt scholars.

The Baltimore oriole is a weaver, and it makes its
nest out of bark, fine grass, moss, and wool, strengthening
it, when circumstances permit, with pieces of string
or horse-hair. This nest, pouch-shaped, and
open at the top, is fastened to the branch of a tree,
and sometimes is interwoven with the twigs of a waving
bough. The threads of grass and long fibers
of moss are woven together, in and out, as if by machinery;
and it seems hard to believe that the little birds
can do such work without help.

The tailor-bird of India makes a still more curious
nest: it actually sews, using its long, slender
bill as a needle. Birds that fly, birds that
run, birds that swim, and birds that sing are by no
means rare; but birds that sew, seem like the wonderful
birds in the fairy-tales. Yet they really exist,
and make their odd nests with great care and skill.
They pick out a leaf large enough for their nest,
and pierce rows of holes along the edges with their
sharp bill; then, with the fibers of a plant or long
threads of grass, they sew the leaf up into a bag.
Sometimes it is necessary to sew two leaves together,
that the space within may be large enough.

This kind of sewing resembles shoemakers’ or
saddlers’ work; but, the leaf being like fine
cloth and not like leather, perhaps the name “tailor-bird”
is the most appropriate for the little worker.
The bag is lined with soft, downy material, and in
this the tiny eggs are laid—­tiny indeed,
for the tailor-bird is no larger than the hummingbird.
The weight of the little creature does not even draw
down the nest, and the leaf in which the eggs or young
birds are hidden looks like the other leaves on the
trees; so that there is nothing to attract the attention
of the forest robbers.